Mahatma and the Mad Boy

Before they became the screen's premier translators of the great works of British (and occasionally American) fiction, James Ivory and Ismail Merchant made several films examining life in the latter's native India. The 1974 short Mahatma and the Mad Boy uses the adventures of a homeless boy living on Juhu Beach in Mumbai to offer some wry observations about class distinctions in that country. It offers a tantalizing glimpse of the career that might have been had Merchant devoted more of his time to directing. Most of the time Merchant produced his business and life partner's work, but with Mahatma and the Mad Boy he took his first turn in the director's chair. Young actor Sajid Khan, who played the homeless child, had suggested the story. With Merchant and writer Tanveer Farooqi, he developed a series of images in which the boy scavenges the beach with his pet monkey for discarded food and items he can sell, all the while observing the Westernized Indians for whom the beach is not a source of survival, but rather a place to have fun. Throughout he engages in conversations with the beach's statue of Mahatma Gandhi, photographed by Merchant from several angles to suggest his differing reactions to the proceedings. At the end, when the boy comes too close to a gathering to celebrate Gandhi's concepts of love and brotherhood, he is removed by a guard, a final, trenchant commentary on modern Indian life and the perversion of Gandhi's dreams. Merchant shot the film in five days during July and August of 1972 at a cost of $25,000. The Juhu Beach was a familiar location for Merchant. He and Ivory had shot scenes there for The Guru (1969) and Bombay Talkie (1970), early examples of their satirical approach to India's upper crust. To add to the Western feeling, Mahatma and the Mad Boy was scored to a sarangi performance by Ram Narajan of "Winter" from Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Khan was the adopted son of film producer Mehboob Khan and appeared in two of his father's last films, Mother India (1957) and Son of India (1962). Hollywood came calling when he was cast opposite American child star Jay North, as two young men searching for North's father, who is lost somewhere in India, in Maya (1966). The film became a short-lived TV series that brought Khan a horde of adoring teenaged fans and even led to a brief recording career. After playing a small role in Ivory's Heat and Dust (1983), he retired from acting to move into the business world. Ivory's crew included some of the mainstays of Indian cinema. Cinematographer Subrata Mitra had shot Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, as well as worked on Ivory's Shakespeare-Wallah (1965), The Guru and Bombay Talkie. Production designer Bansi Chandragupta had also worked on the Apu Trilogy and other Ray films. Mahatma and the Mad Boy premiered in England in 1973 to generally favorable reviews and also did well in Merchant's native India. Merchant the director would follow it with The Courtesans of Bombay (1983), a commission for England's Channel Four, but despite those successes would continue to focus most of his time on producing his partner's directorial efforts. Producer: Ismail Merchant Director: Ismail Merchant Screenplay: Tanveer Farooqi Cinematography: Subrata Mitra Art Direction: Bansi Chandragupta Score: Suman Raj Cast: Sajid Khan (The Mad Boy), Ruby Mayer (The Woman Feeding a Dog), Shastri Maharaj (The Ghandi-ite Speaker), The People of Juhu Beach. C-27m. by Frank Miller